Starwalker had recently lost some ships after what had started as a 1v1 but had ended with 1v2 or more. It was both frustrating and normal, it was the nature of the beast in New Eden:
- This Hawk had fallen victim to the combined forces of a Daredevil and Cambion
- This Hawk had fallen victim to the combined forces of a Federation Navy Comet, Incursus and Stabber Fleet Issue
- This Daredevil had fallen victim to the combined forces of an Enyo and Astero. The shame of this fight had been that Starwalker had switched to Null to fight the Enyo at range but when the Astero arrived he switched target but was so close that Null was the wrong choice. The Daredevil exploded just as the Astero was entering structure, with Caldari Navy Antimatter it would have been destroyed
These recent experiences had led Starwalker to question some fits that favoured tank as when being ganked the tank was not really the deciding factor. In those situations, what Starwalker wanted was to be able to kill at least one of the attacking gang before he went down. That required something like a Daredevil or Enyo or even a Merlin for a T1 frigate, something that could put out a tremendous amount of firepower quickly.
It was with that thought in mind that Starwalker had ventured into Syndicate with a Daredevil and when he ran into a Sabre. He knew that a Sabre was rarely alone but he decided to gank it fast. It worked, as the Sabre went into deep armour and then was destroyed before the de-cloaking Falcon got a lock.
Starwalker had reviewed his losses over the previous few months and had noticed that 80% of those losses were in situations where he had lost his ship to two or more attackers. Perhaps he had spent too long in Placid and it was time to contemplate a move to a different region. The problem with that idea was that his main base was at Covryn and it would be painful to move it, even so, something to think about.
Sometimes Starwalker regretted being in space, especially when suffering losses from gate camps. If the gate campers knew what they were doing, were fitted appropriately with fast lock and high alpha, it was almost impossible to survive.
Starwalker waited, hoping to escape, and then decided to crash the gate immediately both times but it didn't work:
- This Daredevil in Black Rise didn't stand a chance. The Daredevil did have one claim to fame before it was destroyed - it caught this pod, without a scrambler. At 2.75 billion ISK that was an expensive pod loss for Maelgar
- This Hawk ran into a smaller camp in Metropolis but did not fare any better and even the pod was caught. The third ship (Legion) in the camp was too slow and didn't get onto the killmail, clearly it was not sensor boosted
Emerging from the clone vat in Covryn, Starwalker upgraded his clone and plugged in a new set of implants. He decided not to undock again as he was feeling a little jaded, perhaps it was time for a holiday.
Starwalker was in space less than usual as his attention was being diverted elsewhere. However, he had recently got himself into a Vexor with the express intent of seeing how he could lose it. After three years in New Eden he had found many ways to lose ships and the Vexor was no exception.
The experiment with the Vexor started out well. He wanted to fly something in the cruiser class and the Vexor was a good ship with a good engagement envelope. That was put to the test when he scanned three frigates in a medium complex: Incursus, Kestrel and Hookbill.
He was soon engaged, with the Incursus and Kestrel in close and the Hookbill kiting from around 20km away. The fight had only just begun when another Incursus came in and a Maulus. Starwalker was liking the odds a little less now but he was committed and so the Kestrel was hammered into wreckage, followed shortly afterwards by the first Incursus.
The Maulus decided to beat retreat as soon as the second Incursus went down. The Hookbill was safely out of scram range and as soon as the Hobogoblins came its way it simply warped away. It had been a good fight and Starwalker was pleased with the outcome.
He was less pleased though being caught on a gate and being fired on by a small gang (Heretic, Dramiel and Taranis) and the rats on the gate. It was a vexed question - fight on the gate or crash it. Starwalker decided to crash the gate but he did not make it. The tank disappeared surprisingly quickly and he started the armour repairer far too late, although that would not have changed the outcome.
The life of that Vexor had been short and sweet and it also reinforced for Starwalker that he liked frigates the best. He had passed far too many single frigates in small complexes where he could not engage and that was far more disappointing and out-weighed the opportunity to engage a small gang solo.
Whilst he would not restrict the type of ships he flew it was still the frigate that held his love and attention. Cruisers and battleships were good for a change but not for his main choice of ship to fly.
Starwalker had been in two very close fights recently, fights that had ended with both combatants in deep structure. Most interesting had been the fight with a Thrasher, which as a Minmatar destroyer was designed to kill frigates.
The Thrasher had first been spotted near the Sun in Covryn and Starwalker had arrived there in an especially fit Breacher (tracking disruptor) to take it on. However, it was around 100km away and as the Breacher moved closer it simply warped away. So, disappointed, Starwalker returned to base and undocked in a Tristan instead to head out for a roam.
Jumping through to Iges and scanning from the gate nothing interesting appeared on scan but the same Thrasher pilot from earlier arrived in system. Starwalker warped to the sun at 100km and started to scan from the sun. He did not expect the Thrasher to arrive at the sun but was prepared just in case, then it suddenly appeared at close range.
Starwalker immediately went into action with lock, scram and web. The default orbit range was set to around 4km and from the incoming damage it was clear that the Thrasher was auto-cannon fitted. Starwalker increased the range as both ships tried to get the kill.
The damage dropped as Starwalker increased range to around 7.5km but it was still hurting badly and soon the Tristan was on fire. But the good news was that the Thrasher shields had gone and the race was on to see who would die first. Starwalker knew that he could have escaped as he had complete range control but he also wanted the kill.
It was very close as the ships slugged it out with the Tristan now reliant on its small ancillary armour repairer to work at 70% efficiency. It was going down to the wire as the Thrasher was trailing flames too. Starwalker's Tristan had just 3% structure left when the Thrasher exploded into a glorious fireball of destruction.
The fight had been incredibly close and there was no way to be sure when it was in progress who would win. Starwalker knew that it could have gone either way but he was very pleased to have got the kill. Killing a destroyer in a T1 frigate was always an unexpected pleasure.
Starwalker had his fair share of deaths at the hands of a small gang but he was also starting to survive some of those engagements. Whilst his attitude towards a fight had previously been almost exclusively "do or die" he was now adding "escape" to the options.
He had scanned an Incursus at a complex and he warped in looking for the kill in his Breacher. The fight started normally enough with lock, scram, web and fire but he noticed that the Incursus had only applied a scram and nosferatu. More than that the incoming damage was very low, it seemed like the Incursus was simply tanking and waiting for his friends to arrive.
Suspicious, Starwalker set the directional scanner to around 1.4 AU by simply removing the last digit (7) from the scanner range and hit scan. Nothing on directional scanner immediately but Starwalker started to increase the range from the Incursus, which was easy with the applied web. This had the dual benefit of reducing the incoming damage and giving an easy escape option. A second hit of the directional scanner revealed a Republic Fleet Firetail and Merlin inbound.
That was too much to take on and Starwalker decided it was time to get out of Dodge fast and he overheated his afterburner to slip out of scram range. The two frigates entered and before they could establish a lock the Incursus' scram dropped and Starwalker was away. A quick subsequent check confirmed that the three frigates were working together.
Gallente frigates were a common sight in faction warfare space, the prime hunting ground for a fight. Spotting an Incursus in a complex was not unusual and it was even more common that it would be rail-gun fit rather than blaster fit.
Starwalker was in his Breacher and knew that taking on an Incursus would be a tough fight. When he warped in he found the pilot was Nogusha, a top ranked pilot in Screaming Haybusa and a former corporation mate in R1FTA. The fight hadn't started yet but it had just got harder, no rookie mistakes from this pilot.
Nogusha had selected his spot and the engagement began at his preferred range of around 7km. Starwalker had set a close orbit but he had no speed advantage to close the gap, even with an overheated afterburner. He launched everything at the Incursus, his Caldari Navy Nova rockets and his pair of Warrior IIs. The railguns were quickly forcing the Breacher to repair the incoming damage and his medium ancillary shield booster was doing a good job.
The Incursus too was suffering and its small ancillary armour repairer was clawing back the damage but not enough as the damage slowly worked its way towards the structure. The Breacher though had run out of capacitor charges and Starwalker had started his small ancillary armour repairer. The two ships went into structure together but the Incursus was belching more flames and the race to destruction ended with the Incursus exploding and the Breacher with 50% of its structure left.
The Breacher was a flaming mess but it had survived. Good fights were exchanged and both pilots acknowledged that it was a tough fight and close.
Starwalker was roaming around Metropolis in his Breacher when he scanned an Incursus in a complex. The Breacher arrived to find the Incursus waiting. Starwalker was using his favourite fit that was based on fitting both the Medium Ancillary Shield Booster as well as the Small Ancillary Armour Repairer.
The one recent change he had made was to change the shield rigs for another missile damage rig. General fitting wisdom decried dual tanks but on occasions it was a useful addition to the ship's defence. Starwalker had reached the point where he made up his own mind about a fit, he felt he had earned his stripes going through the levels of understanding:
- Copied a fit, not really understanding why that particular combination of modules were used, their strengths and weaknesses
- Fitted a ship with a general understanding of the ships and modules and fitting rules but not exploiting the ships strengths and/or mitigating weaknesses. Using general fitting rules such as
- Fit modules to fight at a certain range (close, scram or point)
- Fit weapons of all one type/range
- Fit MWD and warp disruptor or afterburner and scrambler
- Fit either an armour or shield tank
- Use zero or one fitting module such as an Auxiliary Power Control or CPU Upgrade to enable a particular combat fit
- Fitted a ship understanding why the modules are selected or not selected, complementing the ship's bonuses and the purpose of the fit
Starwalker considered a dual tank justified on this ship and he was confident that he would destroy the Incursus. As he engaged though a Slasher and Rifter also landed at zero and he made an almost instant decision to switch targets as the Incursus had only just recently entered armour.
Whilst Starwalker had no reason to believe that this was a three versus one situation he assumed that it was and decided to kill the ships in an order of "kill-ability". It was a term he had heard when Kil2 and Kovorix had discussed the order of target selection:
- Slasher - as an attack frigate it would likely have the weakest tank and the Incursus would have the strongest tank
- Rifter - it would be next purely because the Incursus would be last
- Incursus - it was the most dangerous ship because it had a combination of good damage and a strong tank
It was always a hard decision to switch targets but Starwalker did and also tried to maintain range by heading towards the Slasher. It worked as the range from the Incursus increased to around 5km and the Rifter was about 7km away. The Slasher went down quickly and then the Rifter was targeted. The medium ancillary shield booster was overheated and working full time but was running low on charges. As the Rifter went down the shield booster ran out and Starwalker started the armour repairer and could finally focus on the Incursus.
Starwalker pulled range and the Incursus damage dropped dramatically, the armour repairer had saved the Breacher. The Incursus was toast.
It had been very satisfying and Starwalker was please with the fight and fighting three at the same time had been a really good experience. Sometimes the kill-board time on fights seemed like they were more than one versus one but targets simply arrived in quick succession. One example, this Executioner came into the complex where Starwalker was waiting and it was nearly dead as this Slasher arrived and it died as well.
Starwalker had a penchant for brawling frigates and liked to roam in low security space. The engagement envelope was somewhat limited - generally other brawling frigates. It was possible to catch bigger prey in a frigate such as a battleship but that was a rarity. Similarly, generally avoiding point range kiters (Slicer, Condor...) was advisable unless they could be caught such as at a warp-in point.
Usually Starwalker avoided the Griffin on the basis that being jammed permanently throughout a fight was no fun. However, drones changed the equation significantly because they would continue to fight irrespective of whether their mother ship was jammed. This became important when Starwalker's Tristan entered a complex and chased the Incursus that was there.
Within seconds of the fight starting a Griffin entered and Starwalker quickly locked it up and sent the drones after it - just before he was jammed. Luckily he had been fast enough, the drones were doing their work on the Griffin and Starwalker concentrated on trying to get out of range of the Incursus.
The drones were destroying the Griffin and for some reason it decided to stay and die rather than run, probably to help the Incursus get the kill but it did not work. The Griffin went down and with targeting restored the Tristan's blasters and drones went back to work on the Incursus. The Incursus exploded and the 2v1 was over.
Starwalker had been helped by the fact that the duo were newer players but what was satisfying was that tactically he had reacted quickly and with the right response. He had seen that the greatest danger was from the Griffin and that it needed to be neutralised immediately, he had then tried to keep as much range as possible from the Incursus to reduce the blaster damage.
Whilst drones could be easily destroyed the benefit of drones was that they:
- Would be able to continue to fight even if the mother ship was jammed
- Would operate over a significant range from the mother ship, in particular against point range kiters
- Some point range kiters would fit their ship to achieve a speed of well over 4km/s to outrun the Hobgoblin IIs
- Warrior IIs had lower damage but were significantly faster and could catch most point range kiters. Consequently, Starwalker carried 5 x Hobgoblin IIs and 3 x Warrior IIs
Starwalker fitted his Tristan for scram range fighting as when he ran into a kiting (MWD) Tristan fighting at point range he simply destroyed the drones. A few times now he had effectively chased off a Tristan because its offensive capability had been destroyed. Whilst those fights had not resulted in destroying the kiting Tristan the more important point was that Starwalker's brawler frigate had not been destroyed.
Today was the three year anniversary. Three years roaming around New Eden with the primary purpose of killing more times than being killed. It was working, Starwalker had killed over a thousand ships with more than six hundred solo. He was very proud of his "Lone Wolf" medal for five hundred solo kills.
What was even better than the Lone Wolf medal was the Torpedo medal for soloing a battleship in a T1 frigate. The reason it was special was because that type of kill was so rare. Starwalker enjoyed the kill and especially the above class kills and those opportunities did come as Starwalker predominately flew frigates.
He also liked the fact that he was a top ranked pilot.
Although Starwalker was a little more wily and made fewer mistakes they still happened frequently such as:
- This Breacher was destroyed by a Thrasher at the station undock. The mistake was that Starwalker decided to redock and since he was only in low shield he did not repair that damage as he heard "docking request accepted". The next shot smashed through the remaining shield, armour and structure. Starwalker wondered whether the pod would dock automatically - it didn't
- This Breacher was lost to an Incursus that applied no scramble but did apply a web, probably a double web given that the Breacher could not pull range from point blank. Starwalker had noticed immediately that no scramble was applied but left it loo long to try and warp out. By the time the command was given it was too late given align and warp time delay
Starwalker had over 60 million skill points and he had all of his core skills and was simply filling out gaps, primarily in drones and ship classes such as Interdictors and Heavy Assault Cruisers. He was not training for any particular ship and still had lots of gaps in specialist T2 ships, although he rarely flew anything like that. Training was consequently very relaxed and not especially focused on anything.
Starwalker still had three jump clones and had spread them to stations in Gultratren, Adirain and Ishomilken. Each station had roughly five fitted ships, four Breachers and one Hawk, along with assorted ammunition and consumables (capacitor booster charges and nanite paste). The main base was still in Covryn and that had the main stock of ships, equipment and ammunition.
Overall Starwalker was enjoying his time in New Eden and he had been with R1FTA for most of that time, which was part of R1DER. He liked the regular small gang roams, although he rarely roamed in a gang outside of those regular roams. Even though he spent most of his time roaming solo he still liked being part of the corporation.
Starwalker had fit the Republic Fleet Firetail with a gank and tank in mind and consequently had fitted it with a medium shield extender.
The Firetail had chased a Tristan in a complex, which had simply warped away as the Firetail closed in. That had meant that the Firetail was nearly 100km away from the warp in point when two Merlins entered.
The Merlins appeared to be fighting as one scrambled the other but as Starwalker approached to around 70km he could see that they were not firing at each other. Since they were also both hugging the warp-in point there was no chance to separate them. As he stopped and observed them one of the two Merlins warped away.
Decisions, decisions - was there enough time to kill the Merlin before his buddy returned? Starwalker decided to try it wishing that he had gotten a little closer than 70km. He burnt in and engaged the Merlin but the timing was terrible as the other Merlin came in very soon afterwards and with two webs applied he could not escape. The proud Firetail exploded into a million pieces of shrapnel.
A little while later Starwalker was back again in another Firetail and spied a Merlin in a another complex. He decided to go in and found the Merlin at point blank range but it was not alone, a Bantam decloaked around 18km away and then started to repair the Merlin. Starwalker had already engaged the Merlin and should have disengaged to kill the Bantam but instead he fruitlessly hammered at the Merlin and a second Firetail was destroyed.
Having suffered double trouble already in Ouelletta Starwalker ranged a little further in yet another Firetail and promptly lost it to a gate camp that was spread on both sides of the gate, he survived on one side but jumped back into more trouble on the other side and could not escape again. Starwalker returned to base in his pod and decided to relax in his quarters with his exotic dancers instead of returning to the space lanes of New Eden.
